English

Abstract

Lateral epicondylalgia is a degenerative musculoskeletal pain state characterised by pain over the lateral humeral epicondyle resulting in absenteeism from work and daily living activities. It is most prevalent in jobs requiring repetitive manual activities of the upper extremity. Literature describes different treatment options for lateral Epicondylalgia but there is no consensus about the most efficacious intervention strategy. Taping (athletic/kinesio) has been used successfully in various musculoskeletal conditions with successful results. To date, no study has investigated the effect of kinesio taping in lateral epicondylalgia. The purpose of the study was to investigate and compare the effects of kinesio taping and athletic taping on pain andmuscle performance in patients with lateral epicondylalgia. 16 patients (9 males, 7 females) within age group of 18 – 50 years participated in the study. It was a cross over design. VAS, digitalal algometer and Jamar Dynamometer were used to quantify pain, pressure pain threshold and pain free grip strength. These were evaluated pre taping,immediately after taping and after 30minutes of each taping application selected randomly for two consecutive days. RepeatedmeasuresANOVA and percentage changewere used to examine differences in outcomemeasures.Bonferroni correction was applied to correct for repeated testing. The results showed significant pain reduction and increase in grip strength after both the taping techniques but no statistically significant differences for any outcome measure between the two taping techniques (p>0.05). Also the immediate pain reduction was more after athletic taping (21%) than kinesio taping (10%) that corresponded to the immediate increase in pain free grip strength more after athletic taping (14.5%) than kinesio taping (9.7%). 30 minutes later both the outcome measures gave similar percentage changes. The present study concludes with the recommendation of both athletic taping as well as kinesio taping for gaining short term improvements in pain and muscle performance in patients with lateral epicondylalgia.